SearchCursor, UpdateCursor, and InsertCursor

InsertCursor only

SearchCursor only

UpdateCursor only

UpdateCursor and InsertCursor

SHAPE@

SHAPE@CENTROID

SHAPE@XY

SHAPE@LENGTH

Working with the full geometry objects of large datasets can be very slow

You only need SHAPE@ to create new features, not to read properties of existing ones

Geometry tokens give you access to the individual vertices of geometry objects, while SHAPE@ only gives you the entire geometry object

Some feature classes do not have a SHAPE field and using geometry tokens is the only option

an array of point objects

an array containing an array of point objects

a list of point objects

a list containing a list of point objects

For polylines and polygons, the cursor returns the parts of a geometry object as an array, so for single part features you need to get the first (and only) part

If you don't use getPart, all vertices for the entire feature class would print together and you would not be able to tell which vertices belong to which feature.

The use of getPart makes it possible to use the same script for point, polyline and polygon features.

All geometry objects consist of arrays of points, so get at the individual points you need to examine the parts.

cursor = arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(fc, ["SHAPE@"])

cursor = arcpy.da.InsertCursor(fc, "SHAPE@XY")

cursor = arcpy.da.InsertCursor(fc, "SHAPE@")

cursor = arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(fc, ["SHAPE@XY"])

cursor = arcpy.da.InsertCursor (fc, ["SHAPE@XY"])

cursor = arcpy.da.UpdateCursors(fc, ["SHAPE@XY"])

because you only want to obtain the first part of the geometry object

because the search cursor returns a list and row[1] obtains the geometry object

because the script is only designed to work for single part features

because the search cursor returns a list and row[1] obtains the list of coordinates

because you want to start numbering the parts of each features at 1